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Copyright ©2011 by Pearson Education, Inc.All rights reserved.

Chapter 25

Monopoly

25-2Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

Introduction

Economists have found that when nations’ governments proclaim that a single church denomination represents the “official” state religion, the church loses attendance equal to an average of about 15% of the nation’s population.

Lower attendance at such churches is a prediction of the theory of monopoly applied to religious institutions.

In this chapter, you will learn why a monopoly produces less output of a good or service that we would observe in a perfectlycompetitive market.


Learning Objectives

• Identify situations that can give rise to monopoly

• Describe the demand and marginal revenue conditions a monopolist faces

• Discuss how a monopolist determines how much output to produce and what price to charge

• Evaluate the profits earned by a monopolist

• Understand price discrimination

• Explain the social cost of monopolies


Chapter Outline

• Definition of a Monopolist• Barriers to Entry• The Demand Curve a Monopolist Face• Elasticity and Monopoly• Cost and Monopoly Profit Maximization• Calculating Monopoly Profit• On Making Higher Profits: Price

Discrimination• The Social Cost of Monopolies


Did You Know That...

• Many chefs are now patenting specific dishes?

• Some chefs now have dozens of patents, all aimed at preventing other chefs from competing against them with copies of their own products.

• This creates a situation called monopoly.


Definition of a Monopolist

• Monopolist

– A single supplier of a good or service for which there is no close substitute

– The monopolist therefore constitutes the entire industry.


Barriers to Entry

• Question– How does a firm obtain monopoly power?

• Answer– Barriers to entry that allow the firm to make

long-run economic profits

– Barriers to entry are restrictions on who can start as well as stay in business.


Barriers to Entry (cont'd)

• Barriers to entry include

– Ownership of resources without close substitutes

– Economies of scale

– Legal or governmental restrictions



• Ownership of resources without close substitutes

– The Aluminum Company of America (ALCOA) at one time owned most of of the world’s bauxite.



• Economies of scale

– Low unit costs and prices drive out rivals.

– The largest firm can produce at the lowest average total cost.



• Natural Monopoly

– A monopoly that arises from the peculiar production characteristics in an industry

– It usually arises when there are large economies of scale

– One firm can produce at a lower average cost than can be achieved by multiple firms


Figure 25-1 The Cost Curves That Might Lead to a Natural Monopoly



• Legal or governmental restrictions

– Licenses, franchises, and certificates of convenience

– Examples include • Electrical utilities

• Radio and television broadcasting


International Policy Example: German Chimney-Sweep Competition Goes Up in Smoke

• In 1937, the acting interior minister of German, Heinrich Himmler, decreed that chimney sweeps were required to be German and had to be assigned to “districts.”

• The 8,000 districts were geographic regions in which only a single chimney sweep was allowed to practice the trade.

• The requirement of only one chimney sweep per district still remains in force today. Thus, within each district, a chimney sweep has a monopoly strictly enforced by German law.

• What is the basic shape of each of the demand curves faced by the 8,000 German chimney sweeps?



• Legal or governmental restrictions

– Patents• Intellectual property

– Tariffs• Taxes on imported goods

– Regulation• Government enforcement of safety and quality


The Demand Curve a Monopolist Faces

• The monopolist faces the industry demand curve because the monopolist is the entire industry.


• Recall that under perfect competition

– Firm faces perfectly elastic demand curve, it is a price taker

– The forces of supply and demand establish the price per unit

– Marginal revenue, average revenue, and price are all the same

The Demand Curve a Monopolist Faces (cont'd)



• Marginal revenue equals the change in total revenue due to a one-unit change in the quantity produced and sold



• Perfect competition versus monopoly

– The perfect competitor doesn’t have to worry about lowering price to sell more.

– In a purely competitive situation, the firm accounts for a small part of the market.• It can sell its entire output, whatever that may be, at

the same price.



• Perfect competition versus monopoly

– The more the monopolist wants to sell, the lower the price it has to charge on the last unit sold.

– To sell the last unit, the monopolist has to lower the price because it is facing a downward sloping demand curve.


Figure 25-2 Demand Curves for the Perfect Competitor and the Monopolist


Monopoly Perfect Competition

Single seller

Faces entire industry demand

Must lower price to sell more

Not all units sold for same price (MR < P)

Many sellers

Faces perfectly elastic demand

Must produce moreto sell more

All units sold for same price (P = MR)



Figure 25-3 Marginal Revenue: Always Less Than Price


Elasticity and Monopoly

• The monopolist faces a downward-sloping demand curve (its average revenue curve).

• That means that it cannot charge just any price with no changes in quantity (a common misconception) because, depending on the price charged, a different quantity will be demanded.


Elasticity and Monopoly (cont'd)

• Question– If a monopoly raises price, what will happen to

quantity demanded?

• Hint– Remember how consumers respond to a change

in price.



• Recall

– A monopolist is a single seller of a well-defined good or service with no close substitute.• Think of some imperfect substitutes.

– The demand curve slopes downward because individuals compare marginal satisfaction to cost.



• After all, consumers have limited incomes and unlimited wants.

• The market demand curve, which the monopolist alone faces in this situation, slopes downward because individuals compare the marginal satisfaction they will receive to the cost of the commodity to be purchased.


Costs and Monopoly Profit Maximization

• We assume profit maximization is the goal of the pure monopolist, just as it is for the perfect competitor.


Costs and Monopoly Profit Maximization (cont'd)

• Perfect competitor has only to decide on the profit-maximizing output rate because price is given.– The perfect competitor is a price taker.

• For the pure monopolist, we must seek a profit-maximizing price output combination.– The monopolist is a price searcher.



• Price Searcher

– A firm that must determine the price-output combination that maximizes profit because it faces a downward-sloping demand curve



• We can determine the profit-maximizing price-output combination with either of two equivalent approaches:

– By looking at total revenues and total costs

or

– By looking at marginal revenues and marginal costs



• Total revenues-total costs approach– Maximize the positive difference between total

revenues and total costs

• Marginal revenue-marginal cost approach– Profit maximization will also occur where

marginal revenue equals marginal cost.



• Question– Why produce where marginal revenue equals

marginal cost?

• Answer– This is where the greatest positive difference

between total revenue and total cost occurs.


Figure 25-4 Monopoly Costs, Revenues, and Profits, Panel (a)


Figure 25-4 Monopoly Costs, Revenues, and Profits, Panels (b) and (c)



• Producing past where MR = MC– Result is that incremental cost will exceed

incremental revenue

• Producing less than where MR = MC– The monopolist is not maximizing profits through

this approach either


Figure 25-5 Maximizing Profits


Cost and Monopoly Profit Maximization (cont’d)

• Real-World Informational Limitations– Price searching by a less-than perfect competitor

is a process.– A monopolist can only estimate the actual

demand curve and make an educated guess when it sets its profit-maximizing profit.

– For the perfect competitor, price is given already by the intersection of market demand and supply.


Calculating Monopoly Profit

• Monopoly profit is given by the shaded area in Figure 25-6, which is equal to total revenues (P × Q) minus total costs (ATC ×Q).


Figure 25-6 Monopoly Profit


Calculating Monopoly Profit (cont'd)

• No guarantee of profits

– The term monopoly conjures up the notion of a greedy firm ripping off the public.

• If ATC is everywhere above AR, or demand

– No price-output combination allows the monopolist to cover costs


Figure 25-7 Monopolies: Not Always Profitable


On Making Higher Profits: Price Discrimination

• Price Discrimination

– Selling a given product at more than one price, with the difference being unrelated to differences in cost


On Making Higher Profits: Price Discrimination (cont'd)

• Price Differentiation

– Establishing different prices for similar products to reflect differences in marginal cost in providing those commodities to different groups of buyers


On Making Higher Profits: Price Discrimination (cont'd)

• Necessary conditions for price discrimination

1. The firm must face a downward-sloping demand curve.

2. The firm must be able to readily (and cheaply) identify buyers or groups of buyers with predictably different elasticities of demand.

3. The firm must be able to prevent resale of the product or service.


Example: Why Students Pay Different Prices to Attend College

• Out-of-pocket tuition rates for any two college students can differ by considerable amounts, even if the students happen to major in the same subjects and enroll in many of the same courses.

• The reason for this is that colleges offer students diverse financial aid packages depending on their “financial need.”

• To document their “need” for financial aid, students must provide detailed information about family income and wealth. This information, of course, helps the college determine the prices that different families are most likely to be willing andable to pay, so that it can engage in price discrimination.

• Figure 25-8 shows how this collegiate price-discrimination process works.


Figure 25-8 Toward Perfect Price Discrimination in College Tuition Rates


The Social Cost of Monopolies

• Comparing monopoly with perfect competition

– Let’s assume a monopolist comes in and buys up every single perfect competitor.

– Notice the monopolist produces a smaller quantity and sells at a higher price.


The Social Cost of Monopolies (cont'd)

• Comparing monopoly with perfect competition

– Monopolists raise the price and restrict production compared to a perfectly competitive situation.

– Consumers pay a price that exceeds the marginal cost of production and resources are misallocated in such a situation.


Figure 25-9 The Effects of Monopolizing an Industry


Issues and Applications: The Predictable Consequences of European State Religion Monopolies

• For years, the church of Sweden was the official institution of the Swedish state. Today, though about 75% of the population of Sweden remain official members, the regular attendance at Sunday church services is low.

• The key to understanding the low Sunday service attendance by members of the Church of Sweden is its traditional status as a state monopoly.

• Economists who study the economics of religion have found that the pattern of low attendance experienced by Sweden holds true in all nations in which a single church predominates through state favors.

• The reason for this is that granting a religion monopoly has a very predictable effect: restriction of religious output and higher-priced services.


Issues and Applications: The Predictable Consequences of European State Religion Monopolies (cont’d)

• Religious competition gradually is developing across Europe.

• For this reason, many economists predict that religious output is likely to increase in Europe in the coming years.

• Why might economists disagree about the appropriateness of using rates of church attendance as a proxy measure of “religious output”?


Summary Discussion of Learning Objectives (cont'd)

• Why a monopoly can occur– Barriers to entry

• Demand and marginal revenue conditions faced by a monopolist– Because the monopolist constitutes the entire

industry, it faces the entire market demand curve.

– Marginal revenue is less than price.



• How a monopolist determines how much output to produce and what price to charge

– Seeks to maximize its economic profits

– Produces where marginal revenue equals marginal cost

– Charges maximum price for the amount of output where MR = MC



• A monopolist’s profits

– Profit earned by monopolist is equal to the difference between the price it charges and its average production cost times the amount of output it produces and sells.

– Monopolist typically earns positive economic profits.



• Price discrimination

– Selling at more than one price with the price differences being unrelated to differences in production costs.

– Monopolist sells some of its output at higher prices to consumers with less elastic demand.



• Social cost of monopolies

– Price exceeds marginal cost.

– The price is higher and output is lower for a monopolist as compared to a perfectly competitive industry.


Figure F-1 Consumer Surplus


Figure F-2 Consumer Surplus in a Perfectly Competitive Market


Figure F-3 Losses Generated by Monopoly

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